COVID Doctors sue FDA over Ivermectin
Texas Dr. Mary Talley Bowden represented by former White House counsel Boyden Gray law firm
UPDATE 11 am: The lawsuit was filed and is uploaded in my sources at the bottom.
When I first called Dr. Mary Talley Bowden in November, she told me she’d never talked to a reporter before. Dr. Bowden decided to go public with me because she was determined to get her hospitalized patient treated with Ivermectin.
That patient, Sheriff Deputy Jason Jones, sued the hospital for the right to try the medication but lost in a Texas state court. But Bowden prescribed a topical Ivermectin Jones’s wife Erin secretly applied on him. Jones went home last week.
Now, seven months later, Dr. Bowden is filing a federal lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for interfering with her ability to practice medicine and prescribe Ivermectin to treat COIVD.
She is represented by the highly-respected law firm of former Bush 41 White House Counsel Amb. C. Boyden Gray.
Bowden and two other prominent COVID doctors – Dr. Paul E. Marik and Dr. Robert L. Apter – filed the lawsuit on Thursday in Galveston. A spokesman for Boyden Gray & Associates said the filing will be in the Southern District of Texas because that is where Bowden practices.
Dr. Bowden wrote on her Substack today “Why I’m suing the FDA.”
In the filing (uploaded below in sources), the plaintiffs ask the judge to:
Hold unlawful and set aside any FDA actions directing or opining on whether ivermectin should be used for certain off-label purposes, including treatment of COVID-19;
They cite federal law (linked below in my sources) that says that the FDA cannot:
…interfere with the authority of a health care practitioner to prescribe or administer any legally marketed device to a patient for any condition or disease within a legitimate health care practitioner-patient relationship.
The doctors write the court that:
Attempts by the FDA to influence or intervene in the doctor-patient relationship amount to interference with the practice of medicine, the regulation of which is—and always has been—reserved to states.
The FDA breached this critical boundary between federal and state authority by directing the public, including health professionals and patients, not to use ivermectin to treat COVID-19, even though the drug remains fully approved for human use.
This case is not about whether ivermectin is an effective treatment for COVID-19. It’s about who determines the appropriate treatment for each unique patient and whether the FDA can interfere with that process.
In a briefing Wednesday for a handful of reporters, I asked Dr. Bowden how the FDA’s actions affected her treatment of Sheriff Deputy Jones.
“His wife, Erin, was nervous to give it to him because of the FDA’s smear campaign,” said Dr. Bowden. “We need to rebrand Ivermectin, and this is the way to do it.”
The FDA has a whole website (linked below) with the title: “Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19.” The agency has authorized the drug but not for treating COVID-19. The FDA says, “Ivermectin has not been shown to be safe or effective for these indications.”
Bowden has treated over 3,900 patients with COVID and successfully kept them out of the hospital.
She did her residency at Stanford University and is board-certified in both Otolaryngology and Sleep Medicine. She has been practicing in Houston since 2003 and opened her own practice, BreatheMD, in 2019.
However, she has been up against powerful forces since she started treating COVID patients at the beginning of the pandemic.
Houston Methodist Hospital suspended her privileges for saying she prescribes Ivermectin. The hospital launched a nasty public campaign against her by tweeting derogatory statements and telling a newspaper reporter before notifying Bowden about her privileges.
She was reported to the Texas Medical Board with a threat to take away her license to practice. She has been attacked by other doctors, dragged in mainstream media and fought attempts to be deplatformed on social media.
Dr. Apter said, “Physicians face a terrible toll… and it can be career-ending.” But he added, “Ivermectin is highly effective.”
Dr. Bowden and the other doctors in this lawsuit are fighting the biggest health and medical powers in Washington and the pharmaceutical companies on behalf of her patients. She has proven in the past half-year in the national spotlight that there is a groundswell of support by people who want their doctors to do what is in their best interest and not blindly follow federal government dictates.
Sheriff Deputy Jones and many others in Texas will vouch for her dedication to patient choice and medical freedom.